Yenifer García Valencia was 33 years old and wanted to finish a tattoo that covered her back and buttocks: a dragon next to the figure of a young woman. It was her third session. To endure the pain, her family paid 200 dollars for an at-home sedation service at her house in the Terrazas de San Jorge neighborhood of Bogotá.
The person who administered the injections was not an anesthesiologist. According to the Bogotá Health Secretariat, he was a nursing assistant with no credentials whatsoever to sedate anyone, identified as Juan Jaider Sánchez Goes. Her sister Claudia reported that they gave her several doses in succession and that the substances included ketamine, the same drug used on animals.
When Yenifer stopped responding, it was her daughter who called 123. The tattoo artist and the assistant tried to revive her for half an hour before the ambulance arrived. They were unsuccessful. She left behind three children and a trip to San Andrés already planned for her daughter’s 15th birthday. Today, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case, but the two men who were in that house have still not been found.
